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K-State looking for historic 12th victory

Wildcats need elusive bowl win to record first-ever 12th victory

MANHATTAN — The opportunities awaiting Kansas State’s football team in the Fiesta Bowl not only exceed anything the current players have accomplished, they exceed anything that any K-State player has accomplished.

The motivational forces driving K-State (11-1) during its weeks of practice leading up to the matchup with Oregon on Jan. 3 in Glendale, Ariz., vary in terms of historical significance, but there is no understating the first one: With a win, the Wildcats will go where no other Wildcat team has gone.

“I think there are two things this team is rallying around,” sophomore wide receiver Tyler Lockett said. “Number one is to make history, like we’ve been saying ever since we beat Texas.”

A win against Oregon would single out this K-State team as the only one to record 12 wins in a season. K-State teams have reached the 11-win mark six times — all during the 1997-2003 time period — but Wildcat teams in 1998 and 2003 that entered their bowl game with 11 wins fell short of capturing that monumental 12th victory.

“It would mean I was a part of history,” senior wide receiver Chris Harper said. “It would mean that obviously we were the best K-State team ever and nobody can argue that we weren’t (because) we got the most wins.”

No. 2 on the Wildcats’ motivational list is a bit more personal.

“The second (goal) is being able to win a bowl game because nobody has won a bowl game on our team right now,” Lockett said.

K-State has lost its last four bowl games — the 2004 Fiesta Bowl to Ohio State, 2006 Texas Bowl to Rutgers, 2010 Pinstripe Bowl to Syracuse and last year's Cotton Bowl to Arkansas.

With the exception of Harper, whose 2008 Oregon team won the Holiday Bowl, no player on K-State’s team has tasted postseason success.

Senior linebacker Arthur Brown is 0-3 in bowl games dating back to his two seasons at Miami.

For the Wildcats who have been around the program for three or more years, two bowl game trips ended in losses.

“I know it motivates us, especially for the seniors, a lot of guys that are seniors haven’t won a bowl game yet,” senior safety Jarard Milo said. “For us to be 0-2 in bowl games and then to have a special challenge like this is just something leading up to it that a lot of guys are preparing heavily for.”

Which motivating element weighs heavier in players’ minds isn’t as important as the focus it creates, sophomore center B.J. Finney said.

“I think they go hand in hand, actually,” Finney said. “Coach kind of reiterates it’s kind of like a driving force for motivation, but all the guys know what’s on the table. We’re all well aware of it and right now we’re just focused on getting better every day.”

Before K-State and Oregon lost their first games of the season on the same Saturday — K-State at Baylor and Oregon to Stanford on Nov. 17 — the two teams appeared to be on a collision course toward the BCS national championship game.

“Notre Dame and Alabama, that’s the national championship game and this could have easily been the national championship game also,” Lockett said. “We just want to be able to end it with a win because last year we lost to Arkansas and it’s not a good feeling to lose your last game.”

The significance of K-State’s game with Oregon hasn’t changed in some Wildcats’ minds.

“What more can you ask for?” Milo said. “It’s not the national championship, but we feel like it’s the national championship game to us.”

BAIRD TO WALK ON: Blake Baird of Silver Lake announced he has received an invitation from K-State to be a preferred walk-on next season. Baird, a 6-foot-1, 200-pounder, was an All-Class 3A linebacker for the Eagles, the state runner-up, with 152 tackles and 12 sacks.